Social media company Reddit soars to $9bn valuation in Wall Street debut
Al Jazeera
San Francisco-based social media platform’s shares close at $50.44 in long-awaited initial public offering.
Shares of Reddit soared nearly 50 percent as the social media platform made its long-awaited stock market debut.
Investors pushed Reddit’s value close to $9bn after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, with the company’s share price peaking at $57.80 before closing at $50.44.
Reddit, founded in 2005 by entrepreneurs Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, had priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $34 a share.
The strong market debut makes Reddit’s IPO one of the biggest by a social media company so far, although the platform’s market value is dwarfed by rivals such as Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, which is priced at $1.2 trillion.
Reddit’s hot launch also bucks the recent trend of waning enthusiasm for tech IPOs after underwhelming debuts by Arm, Instacart and Klaviyo.
